Brutar said, "Let us go in here. I want to talk to you."
We entered a globe very much like those of the Big-City. And reclined at physical ease. But there was no mental peace here—for us at any rate. A turgid aura of restlessness seemed pervading everything.
Brutar rested before us. He seemed always to be regarding Bee; contemplatively, yet with a satisfied triumph.
"I am glad to have you with us," he said; not harshly now, rather with an ingratiating note as though he sought our good will. "We are going to your Earth—to live there, and they tell me, these good people of mine, that they are going to make me its ruler."
He spoke with a false modesty, as though to impress us with his greatness forced upon him by his adoring followers. "I want you two for my friends—you will be of great help to me."
"How?" I demanded.
I had recovered from my confusion. I was wary; the thought came to me that I might be able to trick this Brutar—that being here with him—to see and feel what he was doing—was an advantage which later on I could turn to account. I wondered if he could hear or feel that thought. I willed it otherwise; and it seemed that he could not. His eyes were upon me, gauging me.
"How could we help you?" I repeated. "And why should we? You mean harm to our world."
"No," he protested. "No harm. We have selected it—your Earth—from all that great Universe of yours which I have inspected. We want to go to your Earth to live. That is all. You can help me, because you know so many things of Earth that I do not. I want you to tell me of them.... Stand up!"
I found myself upright, whether by my own volition or his I cannot say.